The present invention relates in general to information processing systems. In particular, the present invention relates to networks in which information processing systems are utilized. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a browser method and system for displaying information from a network.
The development of computerized distributed information resources, such as the xe2x80x9cInternet,xe2x80x9d allows users to link to a computer network and retrieve vast amounts of electronic information previously unavailable in an electronic medium. Such electronic information increasingly is displacing more conventional means of information transmission, such as newspapers, rnagazines, and even television.
Electronic information transferred between computer networks (e.g., the Internet) can be presented to a user in hypertext, a metaphor for presenting information in a manner in which text, images, sounds, and actions become linked together in a complex, non-sequential web of associations that permit the user to xe2x80x9cbrowsexe2x80x9d through related topics, regardless of the presented order of the topics. For example, traveling among links to the word xe2x80x9cironxe2x80x9d in an article displayed within a graphical user interface in a computer system might lead the user to the periodic table of the chemical elements (i.e., linked by the word xe2x80x9cironxe2x80x9d), or to a reference to the use of iron in weapons in Europe in the Dark Ages. The term xe2x80x9chypertextxe2x80x9d is used to describe documents, as presented by a computer, that express the nonlinear structure of ideas, as opposed to the linear format of books, film, and speech. The combination of hypertext documents connected by their links in the Internet is referred to as the World Wide Web (WWW).
Networked systems utilizing hypertext conventions typically follow a client/server architecture. A xe2x80x9cclientxe2x80x9d is usually a computer that requests a service provided by another computer (i.e., a server). A xe2x80x9cserverxe2x80x9d is typically a remote computer system accessible over a communications medium such as the Internet. Based upon such requests by the user at the client, the server presents information to the user as responses to the client. The client typically contains a program, called a browser, that communicates the requests to the server and formats the responses for viewing (browsing) at the client.
The browser retrieves a web page from the server and displays it to the user at the client. A xe2x80x9cweb pagexe2x80x9d (also referred to by some designers simply as a xe2x80x9cpagexe2x80x9d) is a data file, or document, written in a hyper-text language that may have viewable objects such as text, graphic images, and even multimedia objects, such as sound recordings or moving video clips associated with that data file.
When a client workstation sends a request to a server for a web page, the server first transmits (at least partially) the main hypertext file associated with the web page, and then loads, either sequentially or simultaneously, the other files associated with the web page. The constructed web page is then displayed on a client display screen. A web page may be larger than the physical size of the display screen, and devices such as graphical user interface scroll bars can be utilized by the viewing software (i.e., the browser) to view different portions of the web page.
Many web pages are filled with numerous viewable objects, drastically increasing download time from the server to the client. Some of these viewable objects are important and interesting; for example, a navigation bar. Others are more likely to be annoying to the user; an example is advertisements. Current browsers allow the user to configure that either all viewable objects are downloaded, or none at all. This xe2x80x9call or nothingxe2x80x9d approach does not provide the user with an acceptable solution to managing downloaded web pages.
From the foregoing, it can be seen that a need exists for a method and system for managing viewable objects in downloaded web pages.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide for an improved browser method and system.
It is therefore another object of the present invention to provide an improved information processing system.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide to a method and system for selectively disabling the display of viewable objects.
In the preferred embodiment, a browser selectively disables the display of viewable objects in a document. The document contains control tags that describe how associated data is to be displayed. A browser interprets the control tags and formats the associated data to display viewable objects on a display-screen. The user selects a portion of the display screen, containing viewable objects, that the user desires to be blocked. In response to this selection, the browser saves a description of the user-selected area.
When the browser subsequently retrieves the document, the browser compares the saved description to locations on the display screen associated with the control tags in the document. When the viewable object associated with a compared control tag is outside the saved description, the browser downloads and displays the viewable object. When the viewable object associated with the compared control tag is within the saved description, the browser blocks the display of the viewable object by not downloading the object and by blanking the screen at that location or by replacing the viewable object with an icon. In this way, the user can select which objects are downloaded and visible on the screen and which are not.